Two of the biggest names left in the Cincinnati draw went out in the quarterfinals late on Friday. Brandon Nakashima, unseeded, beat the sixth seed Taylor Fritz 7-6 (11/9), 4-6, 6-3, and Sara Bejlek, unseeded and ranked 35th, beat Madison Keys 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7/5), according to Al Jazeera's report.

Nakashima wins the long tiebreak and then the match

The first set turned on a tiebreak that ran to 11-9. Fritz took the second, then lost the third 6-3.

The serving numbers explain a good deal of it. Fritz hit 22 aces and made 31 unforced errors, which is a description of a player whose best shot was working and whose margins were not. Against an opponent content to extend rallies, that combination decides matches.

"I've gotten a lot of confidence over the summer," Nakashima said. "In the final set I trusted my game, I'm proud with how I ended the match."

He plays Frances Tiafoe in an all-American semifinal. Tiafoe came through 7-6 (7/2), 7-5 against Lorenzo Musetti and was generous about it: "He's a hell of a player; he makes you beat him, and that's what I did. Each match is its own story. I just go out and compete as hard as I can."

Bejlek holds her nerve in the tiebreak

Bejlek lost the opening set 6-3 to Keys, a former Australian Open champion who won Cincinnati in 2019 and is ranked 24th. She took the second 6-4 and then the deciding tiebreak 7-5.

"I just kept believing in the match no matter what," Bejlek said. "I believed much more than ever; it was always in my head."

Her reward is Coco Gauff, who had the most straightforward evening of anyone left in the draw. The fourth seed beat the tenth seed Marta Kostyuk 6-2, 6-2 in 70 minutes, breaking serve six times and losing only five points behind her first serve.

"Every match is getting better for me," Gauff said. "I'm being more decisive, my serve is improving and it is getting more and more rare for me to be broken."

What the results are and are not

Two seeds going out in one evening is a normal week on a hard court, not a crisis of form, and it is worth resisting the temptation to build a theory out of it. What can be said is narrower and more interesting: both winners came through matches decided in tiebreaks, and both were the lower-ranked player on court when the tiebreak began.

The Gauff line is the one to watch into the weekend. A player who loses five points behind her first serve across a whole match is not being tested, and she meets an opponent who has just spent three sets getting there.